Help?

[ithildin]

Would anyone be up to answering some medical type questions? It's for future fic, the story after the one I'm posting today. Unlike the writers of Grey's Anatomy and House, I don't have staff medical writers [g] But I have you!


1: There's been a major earthquake and buildings have fallen on top of people. What are some of the technical terms for the sorts of crush injuries that would occur?

2: In a triage situation, I know they use different coloured tags on patients to designate who gets treated and in what order, and some people who are too hurt to be treated at all. What are the different levels and tag colours?

3: Anything else I should keep in mind?


Thank you!

Comments

[bleukittie.livejournal.com]

Boo-boos and Owies won't work?

[ithildyn.livejournal.com]

I suppose it could be an artistic choice [g]

Triage tags

[sinanju.livejournal.com]

The triage designation is based on a color system. You place a triage tag on each victim and tear off the colors until the color at the bottom matches the victim’s classification.

The person doing the initial START triage does NOT fill out the tag. Rather, he/she only tears off the color-strip and attaches the tag to the patient. We suggest that that person also write the time and initial the tag.

The actual filling-in-the-blanks of the tag happens either in the treatment area, or in the ambulance, by the 2nd stage personnel. Tag colors are as follows:

Black – deceased
Red – immediate
Yellow – delayed
Green – minor

From http://www.citmt.org/start/tag.htm

Re: Triage tags

[ithildyn.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the information!

[sophiedb.livejournal.com]

This enough gobbledegook for you? :)

http://www.patient.co.uk/showdoc/40001216/

[ithildyn.livejournal.com]

Thank you :)

[aeron-lanart.livejournal.com]

Apart from crush syndrome (linked from another post) you will get the usual sort of trauma; broken bones, soft tissue damage. If something falls on your head in an earthquake, you are likely to have a bad case of dead. It's possible to get myocardial contusions from chest trauma, with or without any related fractures, which can cause heart rhythm problems even days later. You can get collapsed lungs, again with or without fractured ribs; if you have a rib fractured in multiple places, this can cause a flail segment which is not good; likewise blunt trauma can cause a tension pneumothorax which is also not good - and is an emergency life support situation (I'm ALS trained and dealing with tension pneumothorax was one of my scenarios).

Trauma to lower down the body can include varying amounts of spinal damage, problems with kidneys, speen and the bowel. If your spleen suffers a lot of trauma you could well be in an emergency situation again as depending on the amount of damage it's easy to bleed to death from splenic trauma.

If you can think of anything specific I'll try to answer. I'm not trauma trained, but I do have years of experience in heart and chest medicine and surgery.

[ithildyn.livejournal.com]

I may pick your brain when I'm actually ready to wrote the story, if that's okay?

[fondued-jicama.livejournal.com]

surgicalsteelofferred a while ago to answer some medical fic questions, so I'd go ask her. Her main fanfic is about a surgeon. ^^

[ithildyn.livejournal.com]

Thanks :)

[lastrega.livejournal.com]

I'm really only useful for head trauma but feel free to ask. You do get rather a lot of head injuries in that kind of situation.

Thing to remember: in earthquakes you get fires and stuff blowing up (from gas leaks etc) not just stuff falling on people.

[ithildyn.livejournal.com]

Thank you :)

Yeah, I remember Loma Prieta and all the fires after [shudder] I hate earthquakes, I really do. But I'm going to write about one anyway!

In this particular case, it's a building collapse and no fire, and I kind of have it mentally written, I just want to use appropriate medical lingo for what I can't fudge [g]